Digital Marketing for the Tourism Industry

Jul20

Written by Jillian Smith

If you’re in the tourism industry, whether as a rural town or a larger city, digital marketing can help create awareness of what your area has to offer. It can tell people more about your town or city, as well as encourage people to book a weekend trip or stay even longer. Let’s dig a little deeper into the why and how of marketing for the tourism industry, so that you can make the most of your online presence.

Why invest in Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is highly visual, offering your premium destination to be seen in the best way possible by the very people you’re trying to market to. There are a variety of tactics to choose from when it comes to marketing for the tourism industry, and three specific ones that we highly recommend for the tourism industry:

Easily-Navigable Website

This comes in first by quite a few strides, and it matters because a website is truly central to providing high-quality information about your destination. From shopping experiences to lodging options and special events, an easily-navigable website gets people excited about your town or city. It also helps them easily book their stay by directing them to the right resources to book lodging or activities.

Strong Social Media Presence

Once you’ve got that well-designed website in place, start connecting it to your social accounts. And when it comes to social media marketing for the tourism industry, the star player here is Instagram. That’s because people are more likely to schedule a vacation to somewhere they’ve seen. Use your Instagram account to highlight the antique shopping district, the different bed and breakfasts, community events, restaurants, and more to get people interested in visiting.

Tips for Great Social Images

Well-executed images play an important role in a strong social media presence. If being behind the lens of a DSLR is outside of your comfort zone, don’t worry – you can still execute solid social media images without a fancy lens:

When you take pictures, make sure they have a point of focus: a plate of food, a storefront window, or a family participating in an activity.

Images also appear better on Instagram when you use a consistent color scheme, so choose a filter that fits your brand and use it on all of your images.

You can even try reposting images that were taken by others in your community, with their permission, of course.

SEO Strategy

An effective marketing strategy for the tourism industry ends with a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. This is the practice of optimizing your website so that it appears when someone searches terms that have to do with what you offer. For example, if you’re a smaller town in central Colorado, and someone were to look up “unique places to visit in Colorado,” a strong SEO strategy would help you appear on that search results page.

The tourism industry can highly benefit from a strong digital marketing strategy that utilizes an effective website, a social media presence, and an SEO strategy. If you’re interested in these tactics for your town or city, grab coffee with Caledon Virtual today.